Are you looking for something cleverer than candy this Valentine’s Day? Well, look no further. Cool Things caught up with Alex Payson from New England’s own Blue State Coffee who had a sweet suggestion for the caffeine crazed Casanova.

“On February 14^th, we’re doing a coffee and food pairing,” said Payson. “We have this really cool coffee called Papua New Guinea Tribal Aromas—we’re using a special manual brewing method—and it’s served with a chocolate treat.”

Payson explained, “Papua New Guinea is a fairly unusual region. A huge segment of the population is involved in coffee growing but it’s very, very low tech. It’s mostly subsistence farmers who have a few trees and that’s their only cash crop.”

Hints of chocolate, walnut and cherry perfectly complement the accompanying dark chocolate raspberry ganache tartlet for an unforgettable detour from the same old Valentine’s Day routine.

This particular pairing, featuring the relatively obscure Papua New Guinean brew, will be available on February 14, 2012 in each of Blue State Coffee’s five stores—two in Providence, two in New Haven and one in Boston. But Payson said combinations like it would be a monthly occurrence.

Blue State Coffee began roasting their own beans about a year ago and, as the Director of Coffee, Payson has become their resident expert. But, he was careful to point out about his relatively new skill, roasting is like anything else: meaning practice makes perfect.

“My personal challenge as the coffee roaster was learning how to roast properly,” Payson said with a laugh. “It’s like a trade skill in that there’s a proper way to do it so, in a way, it’s easy.”

Payson emphasized, “But then there’s the art of roasting and how we make our coffee different from everyone else’s coffee and how we make it taste the way it does. That’s partially education and partially just hours and hours of practice.”

He continued, “We purchase our beans—mostly organic and fair trade—from all over the world. Right now we’re mostly sourcing from Costa Rica, Honduras Ethiopia and Indonesia.”

The name Blue State Coffee, perhaps a not-so-subtle nod to the late journalist Tim Russert’s Bush versus Gore electoral map, reveals a little bit about the views the company espouses.

“Since our first store opened in July of 2007,” according to Blue State Coffee’s website, we are proud to have donated over $275,000 to over 100 non-profit organizations.”

Blue State Coffee’s cooperative approach to philanthropy honors the very patrons who make the donations possible. Blue State Coffee customers nominate the non-profits and then vote on how the donations are allocated.

Politics aside, Payson thinks the one thing that sets Blue State Coffee apart from many competitors is freshness.

“We really are fanatical about making sure our coffee is fresh,” he said and added with a chuckle, “I like to think I’m an artisan and that I can roast coffee better than other people perhaps but I think the biggest difference about our coffee is that it’s really fresh.”

According to Payson, Blue State Coffee sells all of their beans within 14 days of roasting, setting it easily apart from some slightly more famous brands we won’t bother naming.

“Any coffee that’s in a grocery store is almost always going to have a shelf life of three or four months, if not a year.”

Payson concluded, “You could have the most fancy, expensive coffee in the world but if it’s six months old it’s not going to taste as good as fresh coffee.”

For more information, please visit www.bluestatecoffee.com and for more lovely lattes like the one you see here check out www.bsclatteart.com.